


wild world

by ineedashiro (madseli)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Isolation, M/M, Monsters, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:38:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madseli/pseuds/ineedashiro
Summary: In a reality where the Galra invade Earth shortly after the Kerberos mission failure, Keith spends his days searching for any sign of human life. When a Galra pod lands in his backyard, the last thing he expects to find is a face he's been missing for years.





	1. island in the sun

**Author's Note:**

> This work contains some potentially triggering material. Please check the tags. 
> 
> Also, I may bump the rating up to Explicit in a future update (haven't decided yet!) so keep that in mind!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a bunched up blanket for a pillow, Keith lays in the sand and watches threads of light dart across the sky and wonders which of them are stars and which are monsters. He wonders if the stars are a deception, the will-o’-the-wisp of the cosmos luring the bright-eyed and brave to doom in an eternal abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> many thanks to [Xantcha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xantcha) and [hchano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hchano/pseuds/hchano) for beta-reading!

**Prologue**

_"On an island in the sun, we'll be playing and having fun,  
_ _And it makes me feel so fine I can't control my brain."_

* * *

The Galra arrived in a bursting of light that shattered the sky. When Keith closes his eyes, he sees the flames dancing in the darkness, unrelenting and without mercy. He sees flames so much that in all his best dreams, he drowns.

But with closed eyes he can pretend things are normal. He can pretend there are still people beyond the desert, living their lives. He can pretend Plaht City hasn’t gone silent, that dust hasn’t settled in the streets from the battle that left gaping holes in the skyline. He can pretend he isn’t the last.

His eyes open and the illusion fades.

It’s mostly dark inside the shack - the only surviving remnant of his childhood home, lost to another flame from another time. It was once so easy to take for granted the glowing face of a digital clock, or the steady blinking of a smoke detector overhead.

Keith has been without power since the invaders abandoned the wasteland they’d created of his home, and the absence of such familiar afterthoughts make even this home feel alien.

Curtains blocking out the world trap the sun’s heat as the day breaks, keeping the air cool inside. Light overflows around frayed edges, streams in patches and glimmers on the dust and dirt floating through the air. As Keith’s eyes gain focus, the various maps that line the walls are his reminder of what’s been lost.

In the beginning, he used them to count the days. He snatched them from town halls or tourist centers or gas stations, whatever was still standing, and marked the corner with the number of days since he began his search for life. Once he’d returned, he tacked them to the walls to keep track of the time, of where he’s been and what he found.

He doesn’t know how many days it’s been since he ran out of wall space. They cover the counters and the table where he eats. None are marked with signs of humanity. All he’s seen is more death and destruction.

He used to bury the bodies he found in the rubble, but as time went on they rotted in the summer heat, and he learned to avoid the smell. Some days he’d pass through a city and become ill from the stench of it.

He doesn’t collect the maps anymore. Somewhere along the way he stopped keeping track - of days, of cities. All of it.

Rolling out of bed, Keith rummages for his jeans. There’s no one around to see him naked, but it’s a habit born from the need for normalcy, for the sake of his sanity.

Not that he has much of that left, either.

Outside the shack, the sun has already begun to heat the earth. He’s not sure how long it’s been since the invasion, but he knows the days are getting longer, which means the heat will soon become unbearable. It’s a reluctant realization, one he keeps pushing aside in favor of allowing himself another night at home in Arizona, where it still feels as safe and comfortable as is possible in a world like this.

He knows he can’t hide from it forever. There’s nothing left for him here.

He tugs on a t-shirt that had been white, once, and now is stained with sweat and dust from the desert and the occasional smear of old blood. Frayed socks and worn down boots follow, pulled onto sore feet caked with dirt. He snatches his first aid kit off the counter and his sunglasses off the table and kicks the door open.

The desert greets him with a wall of hot air as he steps out into the daylight, the big yellow sun far too bright for Keith’s liking. Sitting cross-legged in the shade of the porch, he exchanges the bandages around his wrists for clean ones and ties a bandana around his head to keep the hair out of his face. An empty messenger bag waits for him just inside, and he slings it over his shoulders and pulls the door shut tight.

Most cars made in the last century run on renewable energy, which means it’s not too hard to find one that still works. Some still have music saved in their databanks. Keith’s been driving an old pickup for at least the past few weeks because its owner had the same musical taste as his dad and listening to the old songs is more soothing than anything else this desolate world has offered him.

Sometimes when his head aches too much to handle the music, he tunes it to the radio frequency his father checked like a lifeline while he was growing up and listens to the static.

Plaht City would have been a half hour drive when he wasn’t the only one on the road, and when he needed to pay attention to red lights and stop signs and speed limits. He cuts that time in half, so accustomed to the placement of each crumbled concrete block in the roads that he barely has to think about avoiding them.

The grocery store he’s taken to raiding has one wall blown in, the shelves closest to it collapsed into each other with their contents spilled out onto the floor. Keith army crawls beneath the unstable structures and wipes the dust from the cans that remain, checks that they’re still intact, and stuffs them into his bag. At the other end of the store, a couple remaining packs of water bottles sit untouched by the destruction, alongside gallon jugs.

It’s not enough to last him more than the week. He stuffs two jugs into his bag and stacks the packs on top of each other, balance wavering for only a moment as he lifts them both.

With his haul settled in the bed of the pickup, he drives until the cars left in the roads are impossible to get around and he’s forced to walk the rest of the way into town, carrying one of the jugs along with him.

The city never seemed quite as big when it was full of people, but as he walks among jagged skyscrapers missing their tops, collapsed buildings and rubble scattered in the streets, it feels endless.

By now he’s searched every building left standing, every concrete pile.

No one. There’s no one.

The old shopping mall isn’t technically safe to venture into, but Keith does anyway, often. Watching above for falling debris, he climbs over piles of rubble twice his height to get to the pharmacy where medicines for pain and colds, bandages, soaps and shampoos sit gathering dust on shelves.

He stuffs handfuls into his bag. There’s no guarantee he’ll find any of it wherever he goes next.

Before he makes his return, he stops into the clothes store to ditch his t-shirt. Standing before a half shattered mirror, he slips into a white tank and adjusts the collar of a red and black flannel. It’s too warm for it now, but he might need the extra layer when he heads north.

He takes the flannel off and ties the sleeves around his waist, readjusts his bandana and sunglasses, and leaves.

He’s near the top of the rubble when the ground shakes. Gasping, he narrowly catches himself, stones slipping out from underneath his feet. As he stares up through the hole in the roof, a Galra fleet tears across the sky, near enough to the surface to shake the already unsteady foundations.

Scrambling back to his feet atop the pile, Keith raises his middle finger to the fleet and bellows, “Fuck off!”

They know he’s there. They’ve never done anything.

Another moment passes and the fleet is gone as quickly as they came.

When the roar of their fighter jets dies in the distance, Keith finally allows himself to clamber back down to the ground.

The days he doesn’t travel drag on at an agonizing pace. The sun is hot and unforgiving on his skin. His feet ache from walking for miles and miles, every day, all day. Keith can’t count the number of times he’s tripped over his own feet and let himself roast in the sun, skin going red and cracked in the heat. Sometimes standing back up is too hard.

Sometimes he’d rather lay there.

A few times a week, he takes a detour to the lake thirty minutes out of town to bathe. The natural lakes dried up decades before he was born, leaving only those created by man in the effort to make an otherwise inhospitable environment a home. On the muddy banks he strips down, even unwrapping the bandages hiding the scars along his wrists, and steps into the cool water, letting it soothe his burns and wash away the sweat salt.

He swims to the deeper sections, diving a few feet below the surface and lets himself float, watching particles of dirt drift along with the weak pull of the tide. He stares out into the places the distorted rays of light don’t reach and wonders how long it would take to reach the bottom, how long he would have to hold his breath.

He likes to see how long he can hold his breath. Sometimes he thinks if he can hold his breath long enough, he’ll never have to leave.

When he emerges, clean enough for his liking, he takes his clothes back to the bed of the truck and lets the sun dry him, wiping the muck and dead leaves from his feet with his old t-shirt and slipping his shoes back on without the socks.

He hates wet socks.

The sun is already setting as he makes the drive back. He drives off the road, towards the cliffs, too close to the edge. The pickup isn’t a hoverbike - it’s not designed to fly over cliff sides and make it to the bottom intact.

Neither is the hoverbike, really.

He builds a fire outside the shack, heats a can of baked beans and eats it out of the pot with a spoon that’s been bent out of shape. The stars of twilight blink between rows of patchy clouds high in the atmosphere by the time he washes the pot and dumps the dirty water onto what’s left of the flame.

With a bunched up blanket for a pillow, Keith lays in the sand and watches threads of light dart across the sky and wonders which of them are stars and which are monsters. He wonders if the stars are a deception, the will-o’-the-wisp of the cosmos luring the bright-eyed and brave to doom in an eternal abyss.

It’s a nightly routine by now, though he’s not sure why. It’s not exactly a comfort to know what waits beyond the edges of Earth’s atmosphere. Maybe it makes him feel less alone.

Light shoots across the sky, but something’s off. It pushes through the clouds and brightens until it’s blinding. Keith holds up a hand to shield his eyes, peering through narrowed lids to catch the shape of a pod hurtling toward impact.

Toward _him._

Upright in an instant, he barely manages to scramble to his feet before the pod zips overhead, too close to the roof of the shack for comfort. The ground shakes before it touches down, Keith nearly tripping over himself in his rush to see. Earth sprays into the sky as the pod hits the ground hard, digging a trench in its wake. It swivels and flips over itself and finally slows to a stop, dust and smoke rising from the path it’s left behind.

Keith’s seen enough Galra ships to recognize this as one. His vision stains red, and he reaches back for the knife at his belt, drawing it from its sheath as he steps towards the wrecked pod.

It’s been months without contact, maybe even a year. He’s not sure. Long enough for his hatred of the Galra to manifest in more bloodthirsty fantasies than he’s proud of. He can’t forget the fire. He can’t forget the smell.

He can’t forget the face of the man whose orders brought about the destruction of his planet and the apparent end of the human race.

Maybe killing one of theirs will send a message.

The pod’s shell is bound to be impossibly hot, so Keith gets as close as he dares, observing the structure and placing himself in the best position for a surprise attack if its pilot should emerge. Minutes pass in silence, the world eerily still in the aftermath of the crash, but patience is a virtue Keith learned from someone he long ago realized he would never see again.

The hatch cracks open, and Keith’s grip on his blade tightens, knuckles white. First, a metal hand reaches out, fingers curling around the hatch and forcing it open wider. Keith raises his blade, a hunter timing out his opportunity to strike.

But the body that drags itself from the wreckage brings Keith to a pause. Back to Keith, it’s not the frame of a Galran - this man is big, but his shape is decidedly human.

Eyes narrowed, Keith watches as the man takes a few stumbling steps. When he turns, Keith’s breath catches.

_It can’t be._ “Shiro?”

His hair is different. The tuft of bangs Keith had always been so fond of lost its color, now a patch of white. A scar runs straight across the center of his face, over the bridge of his nose, and his arm has been replaced by a metal prosthesis, the kind of technology human scientists used to dream of.

His gaze finds and locks on Keith, confusion and then recognition crossing his face. His voice shakes when he speaks. “Keith?”

Horror twists a knot in Keith’s chest. He should be relieved - he should be overjoyed, even. Another human shows up after all this time, after all his searching, and not just any human - Shiro, his best friend, his mentor, the person who means the most to him in the world.

He _is_ relieved, and it’s the most selfish he thinks he’s ever felt.

Life here on Earth is nothing like what it used to be. There’s no one else. Keith has searched, and searched, and turned up nothing but dust and bones. It’s not a life he would wish on anyone, least of all this man who deserves only kindness and warmth.

He catches himself wondering if this is all a dream, and isn’t sure what he’d prefer.

“Keith,” Shiro says again, but as he moves to step forward his knees give out, and he tumbles, unconscious, to the ground.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> up next: earth isn't exactly how shiro remembered it.


	2. once in a lifetime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The breeze off the ocean is cool where the sun is hot, heat catching in the leather seats. The longer they sit there, Shiro’s head pillowed by Keith’s thigh as he dozes in the brand of peace that only comes with exhaustion, the more Keith’s conviction solidifies. Nothing can happen to this man. The Galra cannot find him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains some serious triggers. to avoid spoilers, the triggers are listed in the END notes. if you're concerned, please check the END NOTES for trigger warnings.

**Chapter 1**

_Letting the days go by  
Let the water hold me down  _

* * *

The cliffs near Keith’s shack used to be popular with hikers. The views of the desert were stunning, especially at sunset. Garrison jets could sometimes be spotted overhead, flying in formation as pilots ran drills. The skyline of Plaht City in the distance marked the horizon with its familiar pattern of tall, pointed, shimmering buildings. 

The pattern isn’t what it used to be. Though it’s far, anyone who knew the skyline would have recognized the difference. 

Shiro stands at the edge of the cliffs near Keith’s shack. He woke some time in the night in Keith’s bed. Keith, worried about the possibility of concussion or internal injury, slept upright on the floor, back against the bed frame, so that when Shiro stirred, the movement was enough to startle him awake. 

He doesn’t know how long they held each other. He doesn’t know how it could feel like lifetimes and, at the same time, not nearly long enough. 

_“Is the power out?” Shiro asked, staring over Keith’s shoulder. The dull glow of candle light cast long shadows across the walls of the shack._

_“I have so much to tell you,” Keith said._

At the edge of the cliffs, as dawn breaks over the desert and the city’s silhouette takes shape, Shiro falls to his knees. 

Keith steps closer and kneels by his side. It's been so long since there's been another person around to worry about - not the theoretical kind, the ones who might be out there, who he can't let himself give up the search for, but a real person, really here, someone he loves. He hardly even remembers how to act around another person, and it's not an area in which he was particularly skilled in the first place. “I know this is a lot to take in.” 

“I’m too late,” Shiro says, his voice tight. “I was supposed to stop this from happening, and I’m too late.” 

“Shiro, what are you talking about?” 

“The Galra were after something,” Shiro says, sitting back onto his feet. “A weapon called the Voltron.”

“I thought you couldn’t remember anything,” Keith says. 

“I can’t. That’s all that’s coming back to me. I was supposed to stop them from getting the Voltron, but they must’ve already gotten it.” 

“Maybe not,” Keith says. 

“What else could’ve done this?” 

It’s not a question Keith knows how to answer.

“They couldn’t have done this everywhere,” Shiro says, “The Galra can break planets into pieces, but they didn’t do that here. There has to be other survivors.” 

“I showed you my maps, Shiro,” Keith says, wiping hair from his eyes, “I’ve checked the rest of the state, and New Mexico, and parts of Texas, Chihuaua, Sonora, Southern California…” 

“The world is a lot bigger than that, Keith,” Shiro says. 

“I know that. All I’m saying is I’ve been looking for survivors for I don’t even know how long. A year, probably. Maybe longer. I haven’t found anyone.”

“So we keep looking.” 

Keith regards him for a moment. This determination feels too much like the days before the Kerberos mission. This 'never give up' attitude sounds so much like his Shiro, even though the man beside him looks so different. 

And something else is different. Something unspoken hangs between them, something that desperately needs to be said but neither has the means to say it yet. A part of Keith wants to believe it's Shiro's missing memories, even as his own secrets weigh him down. 

But after everything he's been through, he deserves to feel safe. Is a secret so bad if it lets him feel safe? 

He can't know. 

“I planned to start moving North in the next couple days,” Keith says. “Summer is coming and it’s gonna get too hot here. I was gonna drive to the coast and work my way up.” 

Shiro looks back at him. “I’m glad you waited. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you were already gone.” 

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Keith says. Standing, he offers his hand to Shiro. “C’mon. We should head out.” 

It takes longer to get into the city. Five minutes of Keith’s lawless, on- and off-road driving is enough for Shiro to demand he pull over and they switch. 

_“What’s wrong with my driving?”_

_“Get out of the car.”_

He’s sure it’s some form of denial. A refusal to accept how very drastically the world has changed. 

_“The rules don’t apply anymore, Shiro, I can run a stop sign without getting us killed.”_

_“Get out of the car, Keith.”_

Keith went through it, too. It’ll pass. 

And Shiro wants to see the ruins. 

He looks inside buildings and under wreckage Keith hasn’t bothered with in months. With every stone overturned his devastation becomes that much more pronounced. Keith leads him down his usual path to the old mall, through the worst of the wreckage. 

He stills before the skeletal remains of Keith’s old school, the place where they met. 

Keith takes his hand. “I know this is hard.”  

“This feels like a horrible dream,” Shiro says. “How… how did you survive on your own out here for so long?” 

It’s a question that burns the scars on his wrists. He takes his hand back. “I guess I didn’t want to let them win.” 

When Keith can coax Shiro to keep walking, it takes only a few minutes more to reach the old mall. They climb the rubble pile blocking their entrance, Keith instructing Shiro on where to step, which rocks are stable and which ones are loose. 

Perhaps he's a bit overprotective. He doubts Shiro will blame him. 

Despite the absence of others to see him, Shiro insists upon using a changing room. They abandon his torn prison clothes, and he emerges in jeans and a brown jacket, resembling himself at least a little more than before. 

The scar across his face and the tuft of white hair, and the aged gleam to his eyes and the cybernetic arm throw Keith off, but he’s still Shiro. 

Keith tries to take him back to the shack, but he wants to see more of the city. He wants to see the parks and the old burger joint where they would grab lunch after running drills and his old apartment. Keith warns him against it - he’s already looked, he knows there’s nothing left but rubble and glass and dried up earth. 

Shiro wants to look anyway. 

Everyone grieves in different ways, Keith reminds himself as they wander through long abandoned streets. The ghosts of the dead are ever present, lurking around corners, a permanent fixture and the invention of his guilty conscience. He sees people stepping in and out of doors that no longer exist, children playing in the alleys they pass by. He sees them running from their cars as the sky collapses around them. He sees bodies beneath the rubble.

He’s felt this pain for a long time. Shiro is experiencing it for the first time, all at once. 

“I can’t believe this,” Shiro says as he finally comes to a stop in the center of a street packed with abandoned cars, covered in dust. Some are crushed by concrete blocks. 

Keith leans against one with his arms crossed. It’s hard to look at the lines of frozen traffic without thinking of the chaos of the city under attack. It brings him back to the Garrison, to the night that changed everything. 

_“What do you think they’re gonna do to us?” Griffin said. Keith couldn’t see his face, but he didn’t need to. He could hear his panic. “They’re - they’re gonna kill us, aren’t they?”_

_“Just stay calm,” Keith said. He could barely follow his own advice._

Children. They were children. 

“Everything you’re feeling,” Keith says, fingers wiping dust off the car’s side mirror. “I felt it, too.”

“How do you…” Shiro looks around, up at the sky and the ruined buildings, and back down to fix his stare on Keith. “How do you move on from this?” 

“You don’t,” Keith says. 

Shiro wipes his hands over his face. 

In the distance, Keith can hear the low rumble of an approaching ship long before the ground starts to shake. But the sound sets Shiro on edge. He’s instantly tense, looking at Keith with an expression resembling panic.

Keith opens the door to the car. “Get in.” 

Shiro is quick to move, sliding over to give Keith space to settle in beside him. Keith shuts the door again and peers out between streaks in the dust at cracks of blue sky. The car shakes as the Galra ships pass by overhead, but as usual, they don’t stop. They don’t even slow. 

“They have to know I’m here,” Shiro says, “It’s not like we could hide the pod. They’re going to see it.” 

“They’re heading away from home…” Keith’s eyes narrow. “We should head back to the shack. Get all our things together and get out of Arizona. The sooner the better.” 

Keith can feel Shiro’s eyes on him. “Yeah,” Shiro says, “Let’s get out of here.” 

With the ships out of sight, they slip back out of the car and through the city to the truck, parked as close to the ruins as Shiro could manage. Before Keith can even think about driving, Shiro slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. 

Silence settles between them. It’s only once they reach the edge of the city that Shiro says, “I’m so sorry you had to do this on your own, Keith.” 

Keith looks at him. Shiro keeps his eyes forward, focused, but his jaw is tight, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, too. About what they did to you.” 

Shiro swallows but doesn’t respond. Eventually, Keith breaks and turns on the radio and lets the static fill the silence. 

He didn't expect, when Shiro climbed out of the crashed pod, that everything would suddenly return to normal between them. He can only imagine the horrors Shiro experienced at the hands of the Galra, and he knows he himself has changed irreversibly. A year in isolation was never going to leave him untouched. 

But they never used to be so silent. 

What is there to say? 

Something has to give. 

As they arrive at the shack, Keith exits first and tells Shiro to wait. He checks inside, making sure there are no unwanted visitors lurking in the shadows, and then around the back, where the pod sits apparently untouched. 

There’s no one to be seen. He gives the all-clear, and Shiro steps back out, keeping a watchful eye on the sky. 

They go over Keith’s maps one last time, checking off routes he’s already taken and scribbling out routes they could try on their way up the coast. Keith gathers the few items of sentimental value he has left into his messenger bag - a photograph of himself and his father, another of Shiro, his father’s dog tags. His bandages and medicines. A couple notebooks to keep track of where they’ve been, a box of pencils and a handheld sharpener, all things that seemed obsolete years ago. 

Shiro takes the bag and a pack of water from him and carries it out to the truck. He insists. 

The shack has been Keith’s home since the invasion. He isn’t sure how he feels about leaving; solitude has numbed him to sadness, but it’s still the last remaining piece of the house he grew up in. He touches the wooden window frame, fingers brushing over the curling corners of the paper maps he’s tacked to the walls. Tucking the curtain aside, he peeks out into the calmness of the desert, toward the cliffs beyond the crashed pod. 

A movement catches his eye. There and gone in a blink. He writes it off as a trick of the light, or maybe the heat warping his line of vision as it rises from the dirt. 

“Keith, you ready?” Shiro calls from outside. 

“Start the truck, I’ll just be a second,” Keith says, reaching to pull the curtains closed. As he does, a shadow flicks past the window, as fast as the first. Gone in an instant. 

Brow furrowed, Keith steps back, heading for the door. 

The wall caves in with a bursting of light and splinters, and an inhuman screech, and Keith falls. 

Knocked back, his arms fly up on instinct to cover himself. He grunts as he hits the floor on his side, the breath forced from his lungs. His attacker crouches over him, breathing heavily, and it takes a moment of horrified staring to fully comprehend what he’s seeing. 

Sharp claws attached to limbs as large as a grown man, coated with a thick gray-purple armor. Fur sticks out from beneath a hard plate that makes up the majority of its face, and Keith can’t make out any eyes, but its monstrous teeth are in plain view. A massive tail sweeps behind it, and its body fills the shack, blocking Keith’s exit, backing him into a corner. A second set of arms, with smaller, unnervingly human-like hands reaches for Keith as the monster growls. 

Keith slips the knife from his belt and slices at the outstretched hands, feeling resistance as he strikes flesh and bone, and ducks under the massive claws as the monster roars. 

“Shiro!” he shrieks, racing for the door, but the tail swipes him across the stomach and slams him hard into the wall. He barely hangs on to the hilt of his knife, attempting to lash out again, but the monster dodges his strikes, and sparks fly when the metal clashes with the beast’s armored claws. One hard blow of the thick talons to his hand sends the knife clattering across the floor. 

Its fleshy arms, oozing thick black ichor, reach for him again, gaining purchase with hands clasping at his throat. The monster lifts him into the air, Keith’s eyes level with horrid rows of teeth, strings of saliva catching between them. The odor of its breath is nauseating, and Keith is in panic, clawing at the hands on his throat, kicking at the torso. Unable to think. 

Unable to breathe. 

A glowing light gathers in the back of its mouth, buzzing with energy, and Keith freezes in fear. 

“Hey!” Shiro calls, and one of the wooden dining chairs shatters across the monster’s back. 

It doesn’t drop Keith, merely spins around and aims at Shiro. The glow explodes into a ray of purple light that cuts clear through the table and the wall behind it, the edges of the maps on the walls catching flame. Shiro dodges by a hair, using his momentum to kick off the wall and bounce back towards the monster. His robotic arm pulls back and lashes out, and the monster raises its armor to block the blow, but the strength of the hit sends it sliding back into the wall. 

The shock loosens its grip enough for Keith to rip himself free, stumbling back and scooping his knife up off the floor. Shiro grabs him by the back of his shirt, dragging him to stand behind him. “Get to the truck,” Shiro says. 

“Not without you,” Keith says, holding his knife at the ready as the monster prepares to pounce. 

“ _Keith_ -” Shiro begins, but the monster roars, and he steps in front of Keith, drawing his arm back. His hand begins to glow a blinding purple, and before the monster can reach them, a beam shoots from the palm, hitting it in the center of its chest and knocking it flying. The hit brings down the remains of the shack’s structure, the maps and papers strewn about quickly catching fire and filling the space with smoke. 

“Come on,” Shiro says, and when Keith doesn’t immediately move, “ _Come on._ ” His arm latches across Keith’s stomach, and he almost carries Keith out, his boots barely scuffing the ground on the way to the truck. 

Shiro opens the passenger door and urges Keith inside, struggling to buckle his seatbelt for him with unsteady hands. 

“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” Keith says, shoving his hands away to buckle it himself. “We have to go.” 

With a short nod, Shiro slams the door and rushes to the other side, not bothering to buckle himself as his foot slams the pedal and the truck takes off, wheels screeching and kicking up a trail of dust clouds. 

Keith spins in his seat to watch through the back window as flames rise from the shack; the little building that kept him safe for a year, enveloped so quickly. Like it’s nothing. The entire wooden structure and everything in it burns within seconds, smoke billowing into the otherwise perfect blue sky. 

Shoulders slumping, Keith turns back around. His mouth hangs open, and it feels as though his chest is caving in at the center. He slinks back into his seat, covering his face with his hands. 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks. 

Slowly, Keith nods. 

“Have you ever seen that thing before?” Shiro asks, “Was it part of the invasion?” 

“No,” Keith says, “I’ve never - I’ve never seen anything like that.” 

Shiro takes a deep breath. “I think… I think maybe I have.” 

Keith’s head snaps to the side to stare him down. “What?” 

“It… it’s coming back to me. Like seeing it jogged my memory,” Shiro says, “The Galra - they kept me prisoner, but not just in a prison cell. We were like gladiators. We fought for their entertainment.” 

Keith’s eyes go wide. “You fought that thing?” 

Shiro shakes his head. “That’s what doesn’t make sense. That thing - they sent it into the arena with a group of us. I think they wanted to set it loose on us, but it didn’t care about us. It tried attacking the _guards_.” 

“That - _what_?” 

“They called it the Galrakiller,” Shiro says, almost as if trapped in a horrible dream, “I don’t know the full story behind it. It’s not like they told us anything. But that doesn’t make sense unless - maybe they finally got it to change allegiance.” 

A cold sweat breaks out across the back of Keith’s neck. The blood drains from his face, and he forces himself to breathe and at least appear somewhat calm. 

He doesn’t know. He can’t know. 

He can’t know. 

“Keith?” Shiro says, “Are you okay?” 

“Fine,” Keith says, throat tight. “Do you think the fire killed it?” 

Shiro shakes his head. “Doubt it.” 

Keith takes a deep breath. “We shouldn’t stop, then. We should just - drive as long as we can.” 

“Agreed,” Shiro says. He glances over again, concern crossing his face. “Are you sure you’re okay? You aren’t hurt?” 

“I’m fine,” Keith says. 

“You hit the wall pretty hard -” 

“I said I’m _fine._ ” 

Shiro’s mouth forms a thin line, but he nods and returns his attention to the road. Whatever his reservations about breaking the speed limits before, he’s thrown caution to the wind, speeding down the country roads nearing 80mph. They reach the highway and he bumps it up over 100mph. 

They drive mostly in silence. Keith hugs himself unconsciously, leaning into the window. Only once, he breaks through the quiet to ask, “Do you think it can track us?” 

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Shiro says, “The Galra are evil, and that monster - it’s fast, it’s ruthless. Impossible to kill. This is probably a game to them. A sick game.” 

"But it can't keep up with the truck, right?" 

Shiro's brow furrows. "I don't know." 

Keith gulps, the memory of the monster still too fresh. He imagines its powerful claws pulling him apart, piece by piece. He can still smell its horrible breath. 

And Shiro - Shiro seeing it happen, Shiro unable to help, Shiro found by his captors and dragged back to the gladiator ring to fight more battles for the entertainment of madmen. 

They can't find him. They can't find him because of Keith. 

He can’t know. 

As darkness falls, Keith feels himself fading. 

“You should get some sleep,” Shiro says, “I’m okay to keep going for a while. You seem tired.” 

“Wake me up when you want a break,” Keith says. With the sun gone and the windows cracked, it's cooler in the truck, and he slips into the flannel that’s been safely tied around his waist. It’s not quite a blanket, and he doesn’t have much to use as a pillow aside from his own arm, but somehow he manages to sleep. 

And sleep, and sleep. 

When he finally wakes, it’s to sunrise peeking over the edge of the world. It glimmers off water - the ocean, Keith realizes as he sits up, stunned. He hadn't expected to make it so far. 

It presents an opportunity; a solution to their problem, one that rattles Keith to his core.  

“Did you stop at all?” Keith asks, looking over at him. There are shadows under his eyes, and he looks exhausted, but not unfocused. His eyes never leave the road. 

“No,” he says, “I’m alright.” 

“Pull over,” Keith says, “You’ve been up all night.” 

“I’m alright,” Shiro says again. 

“Pull over.” 

With a sigh, Shiro relents and slows the truck to a stop at the side of the road. “Keith-” 

“The truck's been running all night, it probably needs a break. And so do you,” Keith says, “Just take a nap for a little while.” 

“I can’t fall asleep like this,” Shiro says, motioning to the truck. "And that thing is still out there-"

“Just lie down,” Keith says, patting his thigh. “Just for an hour. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Shiro looks skeptical. Keith pats his thigh again. 

Finally, Shiro gives in, laying himself across the seats as comfortably as he can manage. He’s too big for the space, and he has to curl his legs in, with one arm tucked beneath him and the other hanging over the side, but his head rests pillowed by Keith’s lap, and within moments his eyes close and his breathing steadies in sleep. 

The breeze off the ocean is cool where the sun is hot, heat catching in the leather seats. The longer they sit there, Shiro’s head pillowed by Keith’s thigh as he dozes in the brand of peace that only comes with exhaustion, the more Keith’s conviction solidifies. Nothing can happen to this man. The Galra cannot find him. 

Sendak cannot find him. 

Keith already knows the price to be paid for Shiro’s safety. The question that keeps him in his seat, watching Shiro breathe in sleep, is whether Shiro will ever forgive him for paying it. 

He moves in silence, careful as he tugs the handle of the door and it clicks open. Shiro’s face never changes. In his deep sleep he never suspects a thing. Shifting his head off of Keith’s lap is trickier, but Keith tackles the task with a careful, quiet determination. He slips out of his flannel, bunching it up with one hand while the other holds Shiro steady, sliding the makeshift pillow into his place. 

It’s not quite the same, but it smells like Keith, and in any case Shiro never stirs. 

Leaning close, Keith brushes his chapped lips over Shiro’s temple. He doesn’t need to know, Keith convinces himself. 

He never needs to know. 

Keith leaves the door open slightly, afraid to close it and wake Shiro with the noise or the shaking of the truck. The breeze or the sun may wake him soon, but Keith only needs a few minutes to disappear. 

He walks down the beach toward the water, the smell of sea salt wafting through the air. Near the edge of the water line, he stops to slip his feet from his boots, and his socks from his feet. 

He hates wet socks. 

As he sets them aside, he notices his hands shaking, and then that his heart is beating impossibly fast, and then impossibly loud, loud enough he almost wonders if Shiro can hear it in his dreams. He wonders for a fleeting moment if Shiro will wake and stop him, save him one last time. 

The part of him that wants nothing more than to crawl back to Shiro’s arms and let himself be protected loses to the part of him that knows what he has to do. 

He steps into the water. 

It’s cold still from the winter. He’s used to swimming in cold water by now, but not in his clothes. It soaks his jeans, the denim sticking heavily to his skin, making him shiver. Waves crash into him but he’s undeterred, even as the water reaches his waist, then his chest, then his neck. 

A wave crashes over his head and the tide rips his feet from the sand. His body somersaults and then he’s floating, unsure which way is up or down. He opens his eyes to clouds of salt and sand swirling with the push and pull of the tide. 

His chest begins to burn with the need for air, but the animal survival instincts within him keep him holding his breath. He knows what’s going to happen. He expects he’s going to suffer. It’s too late now to change his mind. 

It takes minutes. He doesn’t know how many. At last, lungs bursting, he feels the looming terror of what’s to come. His legs kick, but he’s not upright, and his shoulder crashes into the sea bed. The shock is enough to make him shout, precious bubbles of air escaping and rising upward. Sea water rushes in, bringing with it the panic that’s been dormant, in lurk, till now. 

Keith scrambles to kick himself to the surface, only breaching long enough to gasp and splutter and cough, barely take in any air before another wave dunks him under once again. As he spirals he desperately reaches for ground, anything to orient himself, but can find nothing. 

He’s drowning. The fear hits fully, as crushing as the water around him. He’s drowning. This is the end. 

At least Shiro will be safe. 

It feels fitting that his final thoughts before he dies would be of Shiro. As the water drags him down, he imagines Shiro’s kindness, Shiro’s touch. A hand on his back, his head resting in Keith’s lap. He imagines Shiro’s face and the love in his eyes, so soft and brown and good. He can almost see him through the salt as the world fades to black, can almost feel his arms around him, dragging him to the surface. 

His body pulses to some kind of rhythm. It feels far away, at first, but then the world begins to piece itself back together, beginning with the hard sand under his back, and two hands pressing into his chest over and over, and the panting of a desperate man above him. 

He gasps, chokes on water and falls into a fit of wretching coughs, turning onto his side so it spills into the sand. When there’s nothing left to expel from his lungs, he still coughs, unable to stop as his body struggles to take in the air it needs. 

“Keith.” He doesn’t quite register the sound of his name, not until two strong arms are wrapped around him, cradling him, and the safety he feels with only one man sets in. “Oh, Keith, Keith, Keith, thank God.” 

Keith’s eyes finally open, and the sun is blinding but he doesn’t need to see to know it’s Shiro holding him. His face is in silhouette, but Keith knows the details by heart. 

“What did you do?” Keith whispers. The effort to speak sends him into another fit of coughs. 

“What did _I_ do?” Shiro, incredulous, shifts a hand to hold Keith’s face. Keith recognizes first that it’s the human one, and second that Shiro is trembling - from the exhaustion of pulling Keith’s dead weight out of the sea, or from emotion, he can’t be sure. “What did _you_ do? What were you thinking?” 

“I - I have to go back,” Keith says. In an instant, he gathers every ounce of strength he can muster and rips himself from Shiro’s arms. 

But it’s not enough. 

He can’t manage to stand. Instead he scrambles on hands and knees to the water, nearly tripping over himself in his haste. 

Shiro grabs him with a hand on his hip. The cybernetic hand, Keith realizes as a sharp pain shoots out from under his grip. “ _No_.” 

“I have to go _back_ ,” Keith says again, struggling to free himself as Shiro covers him. A human arm wraps over his chest, and he feels Shiro’s body press down over his, pinning him to the sand. Keith squirms under his weight, desperate, but Shiro only tightens his hold. 

“Stop it,” Shiro pants in his ear, “ _Keith_.” 

“Let me go.” He tries to swing an arm behind him to strike out. He’s never wanted to hit Shiro before, and he doesn’t want to now, but this is too important. “Get off me, let me _go._ ” 

Shiro catches his hand and bends Keith’s arm behind his back, only strengthening his hold. “ _No._ ” 

“I have to die! Don’t you get it?” Weakened from the near-drowning, Keith’s body gives up the struggle against his will. It’s only as he stills beneath Shiro that he recognizes the wretched sound in his voice as sobbing. “I have to die or they’ll find you.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“The Galrakiller. It’s gonna lead them right to me. To _you_.” 

“What?” Keith feels Shiro weight lift off of him, and then he’s flipped over onto his back, Shiro staring down with emotions Keith doesn’t know how to read anymore. “No, Keith, the Galrakiller hunts _Galra_. Not humans.” 

“I’m Galra,” Keith says, almost a plea. His voice breaks, and his eyes squeeze shut, unable to look at Shiro as he confesses. “I’m Galra, Shiro.” 

“No - no, Keith, you’re human, you’re - you’ve been here your whole life, you can’t _possibly_ -” 

“They captured all us pilots. They took our blood. Why do you think I’m the only person left alive on this planet?” The sound of his voice, shaking with sobs, is pathetic to his own ears. “I’m one of them.” 

“No…” Shiro says, and Keith feels him pull away. 

It’s worse than drowning. “I’m so sorry, Shiro,” he says, warm tears spilling over his cheeks. 

Whatever he expects might happen, Shiro scooping his weakened body into his arms and holding him to his chest isn’t high on the list. He cradles Keith’s head, nose in his hair, and as Keith gasps his surprise, he feels Shiro’s lips move, feels the rumble of his voice. 

“I’ll keep you safe,” Shiro says, “We’ll run for as long as we have to - for the rest of our lives, if that’s what it takes. Just don’t leave me again. Don’t leave me alone here, Keith. Please. Please.” 

“But - Shiro, I’m - the Galra, they hurt you -” 

“You didn’t.” It’s then that Keith realizes Shiro is weeping, too. His entire body shakes from it. “You’re still my Keith. My precious, perfect Keith. I don’t care what you are. It doesn’t matter. Just don’t leave me here. I can’t lose you.” 

“Sh - Shiro,” Keith tries again, but Shiro is quick to interrupt him. 

“You’re all I have left. Please, Keith. Please, don’t leave me here alone. Don’t leave me.” 

Keith closes his eyes and accepts his fate. Shiro crushes him to his chest, crying into his hair. They cry together for a time. Keith can’t believe how cathartic it is to cry in someone’s arms. 

But long after he’s run out of tears, Shiro still cries. He keeps going, unable to stop even as Keith promises to stay. Try as he might to comfort him, console him, Shiro cries and cries until the sun is high and their shadows are short and the sea has retreated. 

Even then, he can’t stop.

So Keith wraps his arms around Shiro and holds on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: suicide attempt 
> 
> up next: the invasion.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! If you liked this little preview, please let me know with a kudos or comment, and you're always welcome to come scream with me on social media! 
> 
> Find me on Twitter [@ineedashiro](https://twitter.com/ineedashiro) and Tumblr [@holdingoutforashiro](https://holdingoutforashiro.tumblr.com/).


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